


all i have is darkness (but still i don’t wish to share)

by misslestrange274



Category: House of Cards (US TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, How Do I Tag, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Insomnia, No Plot/Plotless, Reminiscing, Smoking, claire can't sleep so she contemplates her life, i don't even know what this is i just felt like writing it, mentioned claire/francis, mentioned claire/tom, what is this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-12-21 09:08:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11940912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misslestrange274/pseuds/misslestrange274
Summary: Silence is devastating and loneliness is heavy, but Claire doesn’t mind it anymore. When there’s company, one has to share.





	all i have is darkness (but still i don’t wish to share)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure what exactly this is, but I felt like writing it. I wanted to write some thought process/character study type of thing, so I I did, yay me? Anyway, enjoy this angst without a plot lol.

Claire is alone.

The Oval Office is silent at this late hour of the night. Claire is sitting on the desk, looking through the window, smoking a cigarette. She quit trying to quit.

She watches the world outside, sees nothing but the night, black, quiet. The only contrast to the darkness of the room is the redness of her burning cigarette, but Claire doesn’t bother to turn on the light. She likes sitting in the dark, likes feeling like she can't be seen.

Nothing useful ever comes from regret, Claire knows it, but somehow she wishes Tom was here. She feels lonely.

Claire scoffs into the darkness. The darkness offers silence in return.

She wanted this so badly she was willing to kill for it. Somehow, she naively thought she would feel… different. She expected victory, power, thrill of conquest in her bones, but there is nothing there; not a tear, not a smile, nothing left to feel.

The silence is devastating and the loneliness is heavy.

Nothing happens after you become a murderer. One would hope for an emotion of some sort; guilt, relief, sorrow, triumph, something, anything at all. Claire wishes she would dream of Tom, of her mother, she wishes they would haunt her in her dreams, she wishes they would scream, murderer, villain, fiend!

...but she dreams of nothing, when she even sleeps at all.

She takes a long drag and wonders what Francis is doing now, not because she genuinely wants to know, but rather as a force of habit. She exhales a cloud of smoke and discovers she can’t even bother to pretend to care anymore. Francis can go fuck himself. After all, he's only ever cared for his own pathetic ass.

She supposes she cannot blame him. Their alliance was convenient when they had mutual enemies, obstacles to cross, dead bodies to step over. Sometimes their relationship was romantic, sometimes it was sexual and most often it was a business partnership, but it had a clear objective - climb to the top - but once they got there, there was only room for one.

She gets up from the desk, walks around the room. The Oval Office is cold and silent, around it roam ghosts of the past. The presence of many of her predecessors still lingers in the furniture. The walls smell of death.

There’s a cigarette burn in the American flag. She approaches it and burns another hole, making sure it's higher up, just because she can.

Slowly, she turns around, sits in the President’s chair. She puts out the cigarette on the shiny wood of the desk.

Around her the darkness stands still. She doesn’t know why she expects it to speak, but this silence is unnerving.

She closes her eyes, tries to picture Tom’s face, tries to feel the softness of his hair, the roughness of his skin, she tries to imagine her mother’s eyes and the way they pleaded death, but the only thing she sees is blackness of her own eyelids, the only thing she feels is the leather of the chair, the only thing she hears is the everlasting silence.

Her cell phone rings, makes the desk vibrate. Claire opens her eyes and glances at the screen. It’s Francis, again. The bland ringtone breaks the silence of the room and the bluish light of the screen seems too bright.

Claire finds that she misses the silence, for now the sound seems too loud, and she laughs. Her laugh echoes through the empty room, intertwining with the ringing of her phone, and she laughs and laughs and laughs until the phone stops ringing, and the she laughs some more, her voice filling up the Oval Office.

When she finally stops laughing, the darkness is silent again, but Claire doesn’t mind it anymore. When there’s company, one has to share.

She shifts, crosses her legs in the President’s chair.

Her chair.

Claire is alone, but she finds most things are a small price to pay when one is the most powerful woman in the world.


End file.
